Acta Phys. -Chim. Sin. ›› 2015, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (7): 1406-1412.doi: 10.3866/PKU.WHXB201504272

• PHOTOCHEMISTRY AND RADIATION CHEMISTRY • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Hydrogen Production from Partial Oxidation of Methane by Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Reforming

WANG Hao, SONG Ling-Jun, LI Xing-Hu, YUE Li-Meng   

  1. School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P. R. China
  • Received:2015-01-23 Revised:2015-04-27 Published:2015-07-08
  • Contact: SONG Ling-Jun E-mail:songlingjun@buaa.edu.cn
  • Supported by:

    The project was supported by the National Natural Science Fund of China (21106002) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (2011113073).

Abstract:

This paper presents an in-house-designed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reformer for hydrogen production via partial oxidation reforming of methane. We examined the effects of oxygen/carbon (O/C) molar ratio, feed flow rate, discharge gap, discharge zone length, filler diameter, filler shape, filler materials, discharge voltage, and discharge frequency on the hydrogen production performance i.e., CH4 conversion rate, H2 yield, and selectivity of products (H2, CO, and CO2). The experimental results showed that the parameters of the discharge zone played an important role in the CH4 conversion rate. For instance, CH4 conversion rate increased with increasing discharge zone lengths. When the discharge zone length increased from 5 to 20 cm, CH4 conversion rate increased from 6.87% to 22.26%, which corresponds to an improvement of 224%. Also, the fillers in the discharge zone strongly influenced the hydrogen production performance. Using reactors with fillers generated higher CH4 conversion rates. Moreover, using fillers with more appropriate dielectric constants is advantageous for practical application. The H2 yield and hydrogen selectivity increased with increasing discharge frequency. Specifically, when the discharge frequency increased from 1.5 to 7.0 kHz, H2 yield increased from 1.10% to 9.49%, and hydrogen selectivity increased from 21.18% to 30.06%. It is believed that the current results would serve as a good guideline in hydrogen production from hydrocarbon fuels by plasma reforming.

Key words: Dielectric barrier discharge, Reforming, Hydrogen production, Plasma, Methane, Partial oxidation